“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” - George W. Bush

Saturday, February 02, 2013

Qatar’s foreign policy, as Saudi is motivated by religion. Success in Mali would greatly increase the Emirate’s influence in West Africa and the Sahel region. Qatari influence in Mali must be seen in the context of two branches of a global competition with Saudi Arabia to be the centre of Sunni Islam and competition between the Sunni and Shiite branches of the Muslim faith. It is an extension of the effort Qatar is already making in Egypt, Libya and in Tunisia.

Is Qatar fueling the crisis in north Mali?

Oil-rich gulf state Qatar has a vested interest in the outcome of the north Mali crisis, according to various reports that have been picked up by French MPs, amid suspicion that Doha may be siding with the rebels to extend its regional influence.

Since Islamist groups exploited a military coup in the Malian capital of Bamako in early 2012 to take control of the entire north of the country, accusations of Qatari involvement in a crisis that has seen France deploy troops have been growing.

Last week two French politicians explicitly accused Qatar of giving material support to separatists and Islamists in north Mali, adding fuel to speculation that the Emirate is playing a behind-the-scenes role in spreading Islamic fundamentalism in Africa.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and Communist Party Senator Michelle Demessine both said that that Qatar had questions to answer.

“If Qatar is objecting to France’s engagement in Mali it’s because intervention risks destroying Doha’s most fundamentalist allies,” Le Pen said in a statement on her party website, in response to a call by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani for dialogue with the Islamists.
‘Cash from Doha’

The first accusations of Qatari involvement with Tuareg separatists and Islamist groups came in a June 2012 article in respected French weekly the Canard Enchainé.

In a piece title “Our friend Qatar is financing Mali’s Islamists”, the newspaper alleged that the oil-rich Gulf state was financing the separatists.

It quoted an unnamed source in French military intelligence saying: “The MNLA [secular Tuareg separatists], al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine and MUJAO [movement for unity and Jihad in West Africa] have all received cash from Doha.”

The presence of Qatari NGOs in north Mali is no secret. Last summer, in the wake of the separatist takeover, the Qatari Red Crescent was the only humanitarian organisation granted access to the vast territory.

One member of the Qatari humanitarian team told AFP at the end of June that they had simply “come to Gao to evaluate the humanitarian needs of the region in terms of water and electricity access.”

Deeply entrenched

Regional geopolitical expert Mehdi Lazar, who specialises on Qatar, wrote in French weekly news magazine L’Express in December that Doha’s relationship with predominantly Muslim north Mali was deeply entrenched.

“Qatar has an established a network of institutions it funds in Mali, including madrassas, schools and charities that it has been funding from the 1980s,” he wrote, adding that Qatar would be expecting a return on this investment.

“Mali has huge oil and gas potential and it needs help developing its infrastructure,” he said. “Qatar is well placed to help, and could also, on the back of good relations with an Islamist-ruled north Mali, exploit rich gold and uranium deposits in the country.”

Qatar’s foreign policy is also motivated by religion, wrote Lazar, and success in Mali would “greatly increase the Emirate’s influence in West Africa and the Sahel region”.

“If the Qatari influence in the current situation in Mali turns out to be real, it must be seen in the context of two branches of a global competition,” he wrote. “Firstly, competition with Saudi Arabia to be the centre of Sunni Islam; secondly, in terms of competition between the Sunni and Shiite branches of the Muslim faith.

“It would be an extension of the effort Qatar is already making in Egypt, Libya and in Tunisia.”

Lazar does not believe, however, that Qatar will get directly involved in the conflict unfolding in Mali, however, and that rather than getting its hands dirty, Doha will try to position itself as mediator in future negotiations between the Malian government, the various rebel groups in the north of the country, Algeria and France.

26 comments:

If you have the time, I recommend that you watch this video on rethinking Islamic reform. It is frightening presentation on how Islam is infiltrating into the very heart of the West. I juuxtapose the video with the hard and ugly facts of Saudi and Qatar’s involvement in Mali, Libya, Syria, and Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Middle East.

I do confess that I have grown to despise and curse all religions and everything that goes with them especially the insane slave mentality of worshipping a god and wishful thinking that transposes the true gift of life to an expectation that the rot of death transfers one to a better place.

I abhor the damage done by religion and have particular contempt for converts and fundamentalists.

To get a feel on the nature of this video relating to the danger of Islam, jump to the 17 minute mark and see how the speaker cleverly ties Islamic reform with the US Constitution.

There are many more lessons to be learned from this video. It is there if you want it.

Education and intelligence will not save us from missing the lesson of life. We die and the evidence of “death plus one minute” dies with us leaving those on the shore hoping for the best. If any or better yet, all of us could visit that minute and then return, the ardor for doing anything that causes or accelerates death would vanish from human experience.

D-man, I have the greatest respect for death because there is nothing that I can do about it. In fact, it clears the mind by setting a known border and boundary to all that one person can experience and accomplish. It focuses individual experience, learning and accumulated wisdom.

I hate the illusion and the deception that if one rushes to the gate at the boundary of life, there is something far better on the other side waiting for you. That thing, whatever you want to call it, is proported to be better than life and is life everlasting. It is so wonderful that the barrons in the clergy fight to the finish to prevent their own going through the gate, but are quite free with advice and encouragement for others to take the plunge.

Dying for one’s king, country or belief system. It is far better to live and then die for the consequence or the price of having the privledge to have ever lived at all than to die for a grand deception.

That thing, whatever you want to call it, is purported to be better than life

You are correct. Life is the greatest gift bestowed to us mere mortals.To give it away under the banner of Love for a righteous cause, or so that other *deserving individuals or groups may live, justifies that "Sacrificial" return.

(How I wish we had a Jewish scholar here to correct my mistakes when I make them)

At the 44 minute mark of the video, the young man speaking talks about Islam warning about changing things. Muslims react against change. The history of Islam came about to reform Christianity and reform the Abrahamic religion. The irony in it all.

"I hate the illusion and the deception that if one rushes to the gate at the boundary of life, there is something far better on the other side waiting for you. That thing, whatever you want to call it, is proported to be better than life and is life everlasting. It is so wonderful that the barrons in the clergy fight to the finish to prevent their own going through the gate, but are quite free with advice and encouragement for others to take the plunge."

---

That was my view for my entire concious life....until the death of my wife.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood—A lord of nature weeping to a tree.I live between the heron and the wren, Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What’s madness but nobility of soulAt odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire! I know the purity of pure despair,My shadow pinned against a sweating wall. That place among the rocks—is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon, And in broad day the midnight come again! A man goes far to find out what he is—Death of the self in a long, tearless night, All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?A fallen man, I climb out of my fear. The mind enters itself, and God the mind, And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

Tearing, ripping, crying wind

I don't see any promise of any rose garden, here or hereafter

not for the self at least

One is to experience 'eternal life' right here, what the hell else are we doing?

....

Ernest Hemingway said the worst loneliness of all is that of an older man who has lost a good wife after a long marriage.

I just knew Mark Steyn would write an article on Hagel, the choice of Deuce, Chris Matthews and the Iranian mullahs, a motley and diverse crew if ever there was such a crew -

You don’t have to be that good to fend off a committee of showboating senatorial blowhards. Hillary Clinton demonstrated that a week or so back when she unleashed what’s apparently the last word in withering putdowns: What difference does it make?

Quite a bit of difference it seems. This week, an over-sedated Elmer Fudd showed up at the Senate claiming to be the president’s nominee for secretary of defense, and even the kindliest interrogators on the committee couldn’t prevent the poor chap shooting himself in the foot.

Twenty minutes in, Chuck Hagel was all out of appendages.

He warmed up with a little light “misspeaking” on Iran. “I support the president’s strong position on containment,” he declared. Breaking news!

(Notice he only begins were Deuce ends, with the committee of showboating blowhards.)

All fascinating questions, and now that Hagel has announced “containment” as the official administration position, we can all discuss them.

Unfortunately, as Hillary said the other day, “our policy is prevention, not containment.” So five minutes later the handlers discreetly swung into action to “contain” Hagel. “I was just handed a note that I misspoke,” he announced, “that I said I supported the president’s position on containment. If I said that, I meant to say that we don’t have a position on containment.” Hagel’s revised position is that there is no position on containment for him to have a position on.

Carl Levin, the Democrat chair, stepped in to contain further damage. “We do have a position on containment, and that is we do not favor containment,” he clarified. “I just wanted to clarify the clarify.”

February 1, 2013 4:30 P.M.Containing HagelTehran is pleased that we aren’t.

By Mark Steyn

Steyn is a really good writer. A good writer is a writer you feel good after reading, to paraphrase Hemingway.

Maybe death is best thought of in our limited way as a kind of 'time out' (we are told there is no time there, or of a different type), a sort R and R, another way station of the the unending way. But not to forget the judgement scenes found in all the traditions, to sober us all up.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.